10.07.1997

New Labour boss attacks workers

Just two months into Blair’s honeymoon, New Labour’s business ally, Bob Ayling, is tooled up to batter the workforce

Everybody is watching the British Airways battle between workers and their union-bashing bosses.

The media attention could come as a surprise, especially to those who have been involved in industrial disputes over the last couple of years. Remember all the attention the bourgeois media gave to the Liverpool dockers or the Hillingdon hospital strikers for instance?

But this is no ordinary industrial dispute. BA’s chairman, Bob Ayling, has taken the limelight by pledging to make it a political crusade. On Tuesday he took the heavy hand of management to an unprecedented level by threatening to lockout not only workers who refused to cross the picket line, but anyone who would not sign a statement promising never to strike again.

Nor is this any ordinary union bashing offensive. This is the first dispute to hit New Labour’s government, raising the question of what will happen to its honeymoon.

As has become customary, Labour has made no official comment on the dispute. Workers have become used to Labour official spokespersons only opening their mouths to call for more restrictive anti-trade union laws and sing the merits of binding arbitration.

Yet the new face of Labour is at the heart of this dispute. Bob Ayling has long been known to be not only one of Labour’s new big business chums but also a personal buddy of Tony Blair (‘by your friends’, as they say). It is perhaps the worst kept secret that buddy Bob was approached to run New Labour’s Downing Street think tank.

This perhaps goes some way to explain why the traditionally Tory press such as The Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail have suddenly got a touch of cold feet over union bashers and have seen fit to admonish the heavy hand of Bob Ayling. But it also goes deeper. Daily Mail owner Rothermere’s conversion to New Labour indicates the extent to which top echelons of business and the establishment are rooting for New Labour to succeed in its thoroughly capitalist and anti-working class programme. This would not be helped by such an early end to Blair’s honeymoon. And after all cabin crew and ground staff hardly have the militant tradition of the Liverpool Dockers. The Tory press certainly does not want them to develop such a tradition in this dispute.

This could put the Transport and General Workers Union in a strong position, with Ayling isolated and public support swinging to the strikers. The International Transport Federation has already pledged support. Though notoriously unreliable as an organisation in the Liverpool Dockers dispute, workers around the world have made pledges of industrial action. But we all know how fickle the media is, especially when workers ‘get extreme’ and carry out their threat of strike action. They then tend to lose all sympathy from the bourgeoisie and its press and become ’70s dinosaurs again.

Nor should we expect the TGWU to seize the moment. Though Ayling has been tooling up for a fight since December, recruiting strike breakers from its management levels and from new employees on pay as low as £5,000 less than last year’s intake, the union has typically relied solely on negotiations. Whilst threatening to sue individual workers who strike, BA has put every effort into winning the support of the breakaway union Cabin Crew ’89 which makes up the bulk of the scab labour. It has also been meticulous in attempting to separate and isolate cabin crew from ground staff, who can be less easily replaced in a strike.

As a result of the anti-trade union laws, cabin crew and ground staff have carried out separate ballots and are now in separate negotiations. The management tactic of divide and rule must be the first target of the union, with coordinated action essential.

Given Bill Morris’ record in the Liverpool dockers’ dispute, BA workers can learn a great deal from the rank and file organisation that the dockers put in place to run the dispute both at home and to secure international support. Although most leftwing organisations once supported Bill Morris against the well-known Blairite Jack Dromey as leader of the TGWU, it was clear then as it is now that Morris was no enemy of New Labour. He will be just as keen to keep the New Labour boat on a smooth course as the media and business establishment.

Left in the hands of Morris, this could end up as a disastrous sellout to BA’s Business Efficiency Plan (which means job losses, pay cuts and a five-year wage freeze) and another victory for New Labour’s capitalist Trojan horse. But with the country looking on, workers can take the dispute firmly under their control.

They must be prepared for a long and bitter battle which Ayling and New Labour will not want to lose.

Linda Addison